Quality-of-life program may help cancer patients

A therapy program focused on improving quality of life can help people being treated for advanced cancer, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have found.

Patients who attended the sessions - a combination of physical and talk therapy, along with relaxation techniques and spiritual discussions - reported a stable quality of life during treatment, while cancer patients who didn't get the extra help declined on those measures.

Researchers said that although such comprehensive programs might not be available at smaller cancer centers, doctors can still help patients seek out spiritual or emotional help, or encourage them to be more physically active.

"Dealing with a cancer diagnosis is a big stressor for lots of people. It's still a really scary health diagnosis," said psychologist Matthew Clark, the lead author on the new study.

What's more, he said, patients are dealing with the side effects of treatment, and many with the additional stress of being away from their families and friends if they don't live near a cancer center.

His team's study involved 131 patients with advanced colon, brain and lung cancers, all of whom were diagnosed within the last year and being treated with radiation therapy.

Clark and his colleagues randomly assigned patients to undergo six 90-minute sessions aimed at improving their physical, mental and spiritual quality of life or to be treated with standard medical care.

Patients attended most of the sessions along with their primary caregiver.

When researchers surveyed patients about their quality of life four weeks later, people who had gone through the program scored a 75 on a 0-to-100 scale, on average, compared to a 69 for the standard-care group.

However, six months later - after a series of follow-up phone calls for the therapy group - cancer patients reported their quality of life at around 77 or 78, regardless of whether they'd gotten the extra support.

Allison Applebaum, a clinical psychologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said she sees many patients who are struggling with depression and anxiety as well as existential issues during cancer treatment.

"A lot of patients also present with some symptoms of post-traumatic stress," Applebaum, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

"With cancer comes a lot of role changes and losses, such as loss of the ability to work, perhaps the loss of a relationship (and) loss of physical capacity."

NO BENEFIT FOR CAREGIVERS

The Mayo Clinic program didn't have any impact on how caregivers reported their own quality of life, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer.

At the end of the study, caregivers said they would have preferred a caregivers-only therapy group, as well as specific strategies on how they could improve their own quality of life.